In 2021, Digitalist partnered with Ari Technologies to deliver an innovative and engaging mobile application MVP to lead the alpha launch of ari.
ari is a social platform for shoppers to share their purchases and help them make better decisions. It began out of frustration with the lack of transparency, authenticity and connection when shopping online. The ari app encourages shoppers to share the products they love and why they genuinely love them.
The ari team wanted to build an MVP for their mobile app to validate their hypothesis, test for market fit, generate in-app content, and create demand. Their marketing team was well underway to recruit the first set of alpha shoppers to the platform. The alpha app was scheduled to launch alongside planned marketing activities — a date coming up in just a few months.
While the core team at ari had a good grasp of the MVP's must-have features, there was still ongoing customer validation and market assessment work that had yet to be completed. In addition, the team wanted to test if and how functionality to support the shopping experience can be built.
Digitalist formed a cross-discipline tech team and adjusted resourcing to meet ari's growing needs. We also brought in additional expertise with our data science team and worked with ari to refine product ideas, develop proof-of-concept to test and implement MVP versions.
We started with a requirements assessment then designed an infrastructure suited to ari's current and future forecasted needs. An ecosystem was built around AWS Amplify to roll out quickly with space to scale.
We integrated tools to measure metrics and collect user feedback. This helped the team keep track of objectives and key results. Digitalist also provided feedback to improve and optimize aspects of the ecosystem throughout the delivery lifecycle as part of our drive to create momentum.
To help ari meet its objectives and key results (OKRs), Digitalist delivered a mobile app (iOS and Android) along with supporting backend services to facilitate the desired shopping experience for ari's MVP. This MVP included several innovative features:
As ari's user base grows, we took steps to identify optimizations to ensure that the media-heavy content makeup of ari will handle growth for the foreseeable future. The platform technology was built to be modular and scalable from the start, using technologies like serverless functions to navigate changing complexities during development.
We worked closely with ari to continuously track, review and balance features for the MVP to ensure app readiness when the invitations went out. Our team went from requirements to production in a little over three months.
We continue to work on many exciting initiatives! If you are intrigued to learn more or collaborate with us, feel free to contact Marty Banting marty.banting@digitalistgroup.com directly.
